PAKISTAN: Growing War Threat

In a televised interview aired throughout
West Pakistan last week, General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan was almost
preternaturally calm as he uttered the chilling words. "Total war with
India is very near," said Pakistan's President. "There is a limit to
our patience, and we are very close to it." Alarmist talk? Perhaps. Yet
in the capitals of both countries, foreign diplomats rate the chances
of averting a conflict at no better than fifty-fifty.

The outlines of the 4½-month-old Pakistani civil war have become all too
familiar: the country's more prosperous West pitted against...